


the living

by magicites



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: A lot of death but only the ones that canonically happen in AM, Gen, Spoilers for Azure Moon, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-20 22:17:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21289043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicites/pseuds/magicites
Summary: Four friends, and the four funerals they attend together.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd & Felix Hugo Fraldarius & Ingrid Brandl Galatea & Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 10
Kudos: 153





	the living

**Author's Note:**

> so you got the blue lions and then you have the blue lion childhood friend quartet, who i call the lion cubs and love with all my heart
> 
> there's very very lightly implied sylvain/felix but feel free to ignore it if that's not your cup of tea. also writing dimitri's pov is very difficult

**One.**

Age-wise, Sylvain is almost perfectly in-between the Fraldarius brothers: two years younger than Glenn, but two older than Felix. Sylvain was originally supposed to be Glenn’s best friend, not Felix’s. That idea came to a crashing halt the first time Sylvain realized that he liked Felix way more than he'd ever like Glenn.

He doesn’t remember their first play dates; it's as if Sylvain burst into consciousness with play dates at the Fraldarius already enshrined in tradition. Sometimes he’s not sure if he ever existed in a world before Felix, and Ingrid, and Dimitri. What he does remember, more clearly than he wishes, is Miklan’s disgusted look when he realized that Sylvain preferred to spend his time with the literal toddlers than with the older kids he was supposed to want to trail like a duckling. He can’t remember Miklan's specific insults, too little to retain something as complex as the full weight of Miklan’s disgust. Something about Sylvain still being less mature than the babies that follow him around. Something probably laden with more swears than that. 

It made him insecure for a grand total of a day and a half, before Felix burst into tears once he thought Sylvain hated him. After that, the choice was obvious. Dimitri punching a hole in the Sylvain’s door within his castle’s guest quarters and Ingrid working tirelessly to repair the whole with nothing but stray sticks she picked up from outside the castle walls and paste solidified the deal further.

Glenn respected his choice. Always too good of a guy to be hurt by something as silly as a childhood rejection - or maybe just too focused on his own goals to care. He never avoided Sylvain when he came to visit, but he connected with the others way easier than he ever did Sylvain. Glenn's attention was reserved mostly for the others: he shared training techniques with Dimitri, kissed Ingrid’s forehead as his way of saying hello to her, and complained about Felix’s clinginess but tugged him up to ride on his shoulders without fail whenever Felix came around with his arms outstretched, reaching out for his brother. All Sylvain ever got was a nod, a chaste hello, and some brisk small-talk in the hallway before Glenn went off to chat with literally anyone else.

But now Glenn is dead, and so little of him remains that all that sits in his casket is his fucking sword. 

Miklan, in a classic piece of shit move, isn’t here. Sylvain’s parents are, and he sees them on the other side of the casket, standing with Rodrigue and the Galateas. Dimitri stands in Rodrigue’s shadow, his gaze caught on something Sylvain is pretty certain isn’t real.

Sylvain wants to call out to him, but he tries to avoid his old man's attention even on good days. On a day like this, the last thing Sylvain wants is to draw attention to himself. Not like his dad even knew Glenn’s name, or who he was, or what he loved _(his brother his fiancee his prince his country),_ but he’s a respectable kind of noble. He knows when to show up to things even when he couldn't care less about it. 

If he feels anything at all about this funeral, then it's probably anger. That Glenn is dead, and Miklan still isn’t. It’d save him a lot of trouble if their roles were reversed, Sylvain would bet.

A gasp comes from his side, dragging Sylvain back into reality. Ingrid - stalwart, stubborn, frustratingly strong Ingrid - hasn’t stopped crying since she heard the news. She’s been more than inconsolable. He had to drag her out of her room and brush her hair himself just to get her here.

She clings to Sylvain’s hand like he’s one of two things left tethering her to the world. 

The other is Felix, holding Ingrid’s hand back so tightly his knuckles are white. He hasn’t cried once. He’s been nothing but a stone wall, and a furious one at that. For all the barriers he’s tried to put up, all Sylvain sees is the broken little boy hidden deep inside. 

He gets it. He broke a long time ago. Now his friends are finally catching up to him, following the eldest of their little friend group in his awful footsteps. He wishes he could say something to make them feel better, really. He can't say it's okay, because it isn't, and it probably never will be. Their King is dead, their country a headless corpse. For all the talk of knights being swords and shields, it doesn’t change the fact that all these skirmishes do is add more dead kids to a pile that’s already too tall. 

He stays quiet. Because these thoughts infiltrate his good-for-nothing mind, and because he never knew this familiar stranger well enough to want to grieve him. 

If he does grieve, it’ll be for his quartet, and for the childhood that he knows is over.

* * *

**Two.**

Dimitri explicitly orders word to be sent to Margrave Gautier of his eldest son’s death. The dead deserve respect, even those as criminal as Miklan. For all the Margrave may try to pretend, Miklan was still his son. He still deserves something. 

When the Margrave fails to materialize a response, Sylvain takes it upon himself to perform a small ceremony on his behalf. Dimitri does not know the full history between the Gautier brothers, but he remembers the bruises that dotted Sylvain’s ribs when they were children. He remembers the contempt in Miklan’s voice whenever he was sent to retrieve Sylvain from whichever residence - either his own back when it was still a home or the Fraldarius estate, for the Galatea lands were always too barren to support three more mouths - he happened to escape to for weeks on end. The days between his last glimpse of Sylvain and the inevitable letter Dimitri would beg him to send upon his safe return home endlessly wore at him.

Once Hanneman has extracted all the findings he can from the body, Sylvain decides to bury Miklan in the woods just outside of Garreg Mach. Only four people stand vigil in the dying twilight: himself, Sylvain, Ingrid, and Felix. Sylvain did not want it to be a large affair; he explicitly refused Dimitri and Ingrid's suggestion to invite the Professor.

"Invite her and you might as well invite the rest of the Blue Lions, since they'd follow her anyways," Sylvain had said so flippantly that it shocked Dimitri. "It's a funeral, not a circus."

Sylvain may have said that, but not a single one of them is dressed appropriately for the ceremony. Their filthy school uniforms are the farthest thing from proper memorialization. Dirt stains Ingrid’s cheek; sweat makes the loose strands of hair that have escaped Felix’s bun cling to his face; Sylvain’s jacket lays discarded on the grass some ways away, leaving him only in a dress shirt turned brown from muck; and Dimitri’s shoulder cape is caked in mud. They all move carefully, even after the grave is dug, still tender from their wounds from the battle with Miklan’s beast. 

Yet here they stand. A funeral for a man with no name, no family, no one but the brother he almost killed and the friends who came so he would not stand alone. 

“Is anyone going to say something, or will we all stand around this pile of dirt until nightfall?” Felix grouses. 

“Felix, If you're trying to leave, give up. When this will end is up to Sylvain, not you.” Ingrid says. What she means goes unspoken, but Dimitri hears it all the same: _ He is the one who is here to mourn, not us. _

Dimitri sincerely hopes that this will help Sylvain, so he can avoid the fate that Dimitri has succumbed to. His own ghosts are so heavy. His parents still linger on the edges of his vision when he isn’t paying attention. Glenn’s sharp voice whispers in his ear on particularly sleepless nights, bemoaning the senseless of his death.

_ I could have been something great_, he says.

_ I almost was. _

Felix is something great in his stead, fighting Glenn’s legacy as if it was a guillotine meant to behead him but falling into it all the same. But Felix sees Dimitri for who he is, not who he keeps pretending to be. It is hard to see him and not think of the brother he wears like a shell.

“What, am I supposed to say something?” Sylvain says. Ingrid shrugs, trying only to prompt him into leading the rest of them in action. What a twisted version of the dynamic they shard s children - the eldest of their small quartet, leading the rest of them around with an authority that not even the crown prince was old enough to mimic.

“Fine, I guess. Here lies Miklan. He got a terrible lot in life, but he used that as an excuse to be a terrible person. He tried to kill me so many times I lost count, just because I was born with a Crest and he wasn’t.” Sylvain goes to continue, but he stops himself on an aborted breath. 

“And?” Dimitri prompts, hoping that his guess is correct.

“And somehow, I’m still sad that he’s dead,” Sylvain finishes. 

They find a massive stone to serve as his grave marker. Despite the Thoron crackling up and down Felix’s arms, anxious to carve insults into the rock, they leave it blank. 

Sylvain is so much larger than all of them, but Ingrid pulls him into her arms with the strength of an entire army. Her hand shoots out to pull Dimitri into the fray, and Dimitri risks his own life to grab Felix in turn and bring him close. They pile against each other like kittens without their mother, searching for whatever warmth they can in the dead of winter. 

Dimitri sees a flicker of movement on the edge of the horizon. A shadowy Miklan leans against a tree, joining Glenn’s headless body and Lambert’s bloody, forever-sobbing face. 

Dimitri squeezes his eyes shut and focuses on the warmth of his friends. He cannot save those spirits yet. All he can do is support his friends. 

_(It will not be enough.)_

* * *

**Three.**

Ingrid once foolishly believed she would never have to attend another funeral for a _ weapon _ ever again. Yet here she stands, so deep in the northern trenches of Gautier territory that not even the most zealous of Imperial troops would enter in search of Kingdom soldiers to strike down, attending a ceremony for two halves of a broken lance. 

Whatever remains of King Dimitri is held captive by that traitor, Cornelia. There is no way three rogue soldiers, trained by the most impressive military commander anyone has ever seen or not, could go retrieve his body and come out of Fhirdiad alive. For as badly as Ingrid wishes to honor the man who should be her liege, what kind of knight dies in service of a king that is already dead? That is not a sacrifice for the kingdom. That is nothing but stupid.

_(That is what Dimitri tried to tell her, so long ago, when they fought over the meaning of Glenn’s death. She understands better now, how to separate the romantic tales she loves so deeply she’s spun them into her core and the senseless tragedy that so often permeates real life.) _

All they have is a broken lance that Felix produced from goddess-knows-where. “The boar last used it. Snapped it clean in two when he was training with me,” he explains as they dig a shallow grave for the pointed tip of the weapon. They have no shovels, no tools, nothing but Felix’s sword, Sylvain’s lance, and Ingrid’s axe. There is no procession, no other guests save for Sylvain’s horse and Ingrid’s pegasus, both nosing the thick layer of snow in hopes of finding any hidden grass to eat. 

Their King, their _ friend_, has been announced dead for the better part of a month. The infrequent letters Ingrid shares with her boys turned frantic once she learned of the news. She’s traveled all over the Kingdom, providing cover for dwindling Kingdom forces and scouting out safe paths for citizens of captured cities to flee on. Sylvain has been bogged down by an even higher number of invasions from Sreng, now that they know the Kingdom is even more in shambles than before. Felix has stayed at his father’s side, thrust into commanding an army when he wants nothing more than to strike off alone. 

But Gautier forces won their latest battle against Sreng, Felix is still limping from a leg broken so badly that not even magical healing could set it completely correct, and Ingrid cannot keep flying alone when her heart is this broken. In the end, what they needed was each other. Not Rodrigue mourning his favorite son, not Margrave Gautier searching for a suitable bride for Sylvain should he die before he can father an heir, not Ingrid’s own father and his constant attempts to get Ingrid to return home where her body will be safe and her mind will be poisoned from grief. 

Each other, and whatever remains of Dimitri’s spirit that their combined presence can summon. 

Felix, for all his open hatred of Dimitri, is the one to set half the lance into the grave. He was closest to Dimitri out of the four of them, back in their earliest days together, when _ Dimitri _ was more important a title than _ Prince. _ He was also the first to see Dimitri for who, Ingrid supposes, he became the day Glenn died. A frenzied monster. 

Who are they mourning here? The Dimitri they once knew, or the Dimitri that Felix tried to warn them about? Are they one and the same? Ingrid can’t be certain.

What she is certain of, she says. “He was more than our King. He was our friend.” _ We loved him, _ she is careful not to say. It’s too strong of a word for Felix, too afraid of his own feelings to confront them, or for Sylvain, too convinced of his own innate worthlessness to accept a word that strong. If they do not love, then they cannot be loved, and no one will miss them when they die.

Except they couldn’t be more wrong, those pair of fools. She would miss them every remaining day of her life, the same way she carries Glenn with her everywhere she goes. The same way she’ll carry Dimitri now, too. She fights for their memories, their ideals, the potential they never realized. 

She’ll fight for their memories too, should the time come. She hopes it never will.

She wants to say something, anything, but she stays silent. The Ingrid untouched by this war would have loudly proclaimed whatever came to mind, her honestly a blunt force trauma butting up against the silence Felix cloaks himself in and the lies Sylvain spins as sincerity. She would have bullied them into truth, the same way she’s had to since they were children.

But this Ingrid is wiser, and when they all balance on a needlepoint tip of stability, the last thing she wants is to break out a fight here. Instead, she turns to Sylvain, silently willing him to add something.

Sylvain grabs the end of his lance and begins to fill the grave with displaced dirt. “I think he’d appreciate this. He’d rub the back of his head and laugh nervously. He’d use that voice he gets whenever he’s embarrassed - you guys know the one, right?” At Ingrid and Felix’s nods, he continues. “He’d be all,” and at this point, Sylvain’s voice takes on a deeper, almost wavering baritone, “_oh my, this is quite an embarrassing way to memorialize me_.” 

Felix snorts. “The boar would. But you wouldn’t be fooled. He’d be stupid enough to feel honored by something like this.”

A laugh bursts out of Ingrid, shocking all three of them. Laughing, at their makeshift funeral for Dimitri? What kind of friend is she? A wave of guilt follows, pushing pressure against the backs of her eyes.

She hasn’t cried in so long, but time stops mattering as her tears fall. She’s an ugly crier, nothing at all like the girls Sylvain used to parade around, nothing at all like Felix’s cute sniffles and perfect tears back when he still showed his heart. She feels foolish for crying here, but at least Sylvain’s hand squeezes her shoulder and Felix throws his cloak over her, as if crying would somehow make her colder.

If she tries hard enough, she can almost imagine the Dimitri she thought she knew, smiling at her through his embarrassment. Guilty at causing her tears, but touched by how much he meant - he _ means _ \- to her.

They leave before the sun sets, using the other end of the lance as a solitary marker. A nondescript grave out in the middle of the frozen woods, safe from prying eyes and treacherous hands. 

Sylvain helps Felix onto the back of his horse, since Felix has never been good around horses in any capacity, before swinging up in front of him. He’ll bring Felix back home, dropping him off on Rodrigue’s doorstep like this wasn’t a secret funeral for their fallen King but a first date between teenagers. 

And Ingrid will go back to flying across their broken home, feeding the fires of war wherever she can. 

They leave, four-made-three and what should be one path cleaved in two. 

Ingrid hopes that this isn’t the last time they meet. 

* * *

**Four.**

Rodrigue Fraldarius, the Shield of Faerghus, fathered two sons. In his mind, he had three, each clearly ranked in his mind until his dying breath. 

Dimitri, the one that he didn’t raise, didn’t father, didn’t do anything but long for the Prince’s own father, was clearly the first. If Rodrigue never married, never decided to service his country by passing on his absurd Crest, he would have been perfectly content to help raise Dimitri for the rest of his life. 

But he didn’t. The fool.

Then there was Glenn, the perfect swordsman, just as rude as Felix is now but twice as loyal to everything Rodrigue ever loved. 

Then, scraping the bottom of the barrel, was Felix. 

He died, in the end, for exactly who he lived for: Dimitri. Sure, his death pulled Dimitri’s humanity back out of the animal that wore his skin, but a victory as pyrrhic as this doesn’t sit right with Felix.

The actual funeral - the one with the professor, the other Blue Lions, the church, Rodrigue’s men, and the entire fucking Fraldarius estate, was more of a circus than a funeral. Held on the Fraldarius estate, it was nothing but senseless pomp and circumstance. A trail of people came to offer their condolences to Felix afterwards. More than once he snapped at some idiot to offer their condolences to the son Rodrigue died for, rather than the one he refused to live for. 

But now the circus is over, and Felix sits in the bedroom that he is no longer certain belongs to him. With Rodrigue dead, is he supposed to take over his father’s quarters? He hates all of the manor, but he hates Rodrigue’s multiple rooms - sleeping chamber, study, lounging quarters, _ ugh _ \- more than anything else. 

This room is smaller than most in the manor; that’s why Felix chose it. 

He is to stay the night here before heading back to Garreg Mach the following morning. There’s still a war to win, after all. 

Sylvain sits on the bed next to him, while Ingrid perches in his desk chair. It is comfortable here, under the eye of people that can take the worst poison he can spit out. He doesn’t have to pretend to be sad. 

No. Here, he can be true to his fury.

A knock sounds at the door. For some reason, Felix’s mind automatically supplies the identity of the intruder as the Professor. Probably here to offer her own private condolences, the same way she broke away from Dimitri’s side - for once - on the ride here to keep Felix company. “Talk to me tomorrow, Professor,” Felix calls. “I’m tired.”

“I was told that Ingrid and Sylvain are also here with you,” Dimitri’s voice answers. 

Felix grumbles a swear so crude that it makes Sylvain laugh and Ingrid frown. He’s going to berate whatever servant told Dimitri their location the moment he finds out who he is. “What of it?” 

“I was hoping I could join you. I feel as though the four of us have spent such little time together recently.” 

“Because you’ve been too haunted by ghosts to care about the living,” Felix mutters, careful not to be loud enough to let Dimitri hear.

“Give him a chance, Felix,” Ingrid pleads. Always the mediator when she isn’t part of the problem herself. 

“Who knows? Maybe it will be like old times,” Sylvain offers, the traitor he is. For as much as Felix wants to refuse, he knows that Ingrid and Sylvain will wear him down eventually. Sylvain’s sleeping here tonight, just as he did the previous two nights they’ve been here, and Ingrid will only leave when Sylvain carries her back to the room she's claimed since childhood _(the one that shares a wall with Glenn's old room)_ after she accidentally falls asleep at Felix’s desk for the third time in a row. 

“Fine,” Felix calls out. “But if you break anything, I’ll break your legs, boar.” The threat is empty and they all know it, which must be why Dimitri opens the door without so much as a single wince. While he isn't clad in his filthy armor, the nonsense he wears is still more regal, more militaristic, than the simple clothing the rest of them don. 

Dimitri takes a seat at the end of Felix’s bed, just far enough away that Felix can’t kick him if he wants. It feels intentional. Felix's anger spikes once again. 

“I wanted to apologize,” Dimitri says. “I know Rodrigue loved you, but…”

“He loved you more. Trust me. It’s always been obvious,” Felix says. Ingrid breathes out Felix’s name like a warning. All Sylvain does is mutter near Felix’s ear how he knows the feeling.

“I-” Dimitri begins. 

Felix cuts him off. “It’s not your fault, boar. Don’t act like it is. If you’re here to apologize for his own bad parenting, then I don’t want to hear it.”

That shuts Dimitri up, if only for a few moments. “I-I still feel like I need to repay you, somehow. I’m in your debt, Felix.” He glances to Ingrid and Sylvain as well. “All of your debts. All these years, and despite all my missteps, you never left my side. I don’t know what to do about that.”

An answer comes quickly. Not just to Felix, but to all of them.

“Stop living for ghosts,” Felix says. “Live for the people still here.”

“How about we end this war as fast as possible, huh? I’d like to stop fighting for my life all the time,” Sylvain says, leaning back on Felix’s pillows as if Felix were the guest and Sylvain the host. 

But it’s what Ingrid says that shocks them all, Felix included. 

“Just be our friend, Your Highne--Dimitri. It’s always been the four of us. Please, let’s keep it that way.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what that looks like anymore,” Dimitri says.

“Well, it’d help if you took off your armor,” Ingrid says gently. In the candlelight that flickers on the desk, she is radiant. Felix would skewer an entire nation on his sword for her.

_(For all three of them. He’s already started, hasn’t he.)_

Dimitri is shocked by her words, but he listens. He removes his armor one piece at a time, leaving him smaller and more frail than Felix has seen him in years. He looks like he doesn’t know what to do with himself. 

“And it’d help if you stayed here and talked with us. Not about anything in particular, either. Not war. Not strategy. Just… whatever comes to mind, I suppose,” she adds. 

“Yeah! Like old times,” Sylvain says. “Besides, it feels like all the four of us ever do this days is come together to talk about who’s dead. Let’s lighten it up a little.”

Ingrid looks ready to snap at him for being so callous, but she stops when Felix pins her in place with a look. “I agree. I’ve had enough of discussing the dead,” Felix says. 

For all Felix’s rage, for all his betrayal, he’s always preferred to live for the people still standing. He doesn’t wear graveyards around his neck, like Ingrid and Dimitri do. He does not forget them, not ever, but he’d rather focus on the future than dwell in the past. 

Yet for this one night, he indulges them. They leave their ghosts at the door, and for the first time since before their lives collectively fell apart, Felix can almost believe that nothing is wrong. That they’re all children at a sleepover once more. 

They talk until morning, until longer after the candles all burn to nothing and the first rays of dawn take their place instead. Until Dimitri, who relocated to the floor hours ago, nods off against Ingrid’s shins as her head rests on Felix’s desk, and Sylvain, with his head against Felix’s shoulder, cannot keep his eyes open any longer.

For once, they do something other than mourn together.


End file.
